Searching
by Ophelion
Summary: ONESHOT. As the rain falls, Hisana is searching...


This idea came upon me along with exam time… and who can refuse a muse's calling? My first _Bleach_ 'fic… I like writing monologues. They're fun.

I figured that Hisana is the only character that has passed between the worlds so many times… or as far as we know, anyway. So yes, this is her narration. That's all. Enjoy, and please review.

**Disclaimer: **Kubo Tite owns all of Bleach. I'd probably make a few more characters die if I were him…

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**Searching**

I've always been searching… searching…

Searching for food, searching for shelter, searching for a life beyond the ruin that was my world.

Searching for something that my soul can rest in…

Searching for you, Rukia.

You were the dear sister that I could not protect; for so many times, I could not protect you. I could not protect you from life, nor could I protect you from death.

So that was how we died.

You were so small, Rukia… I remember the moment before you passed – my tears fell upon your face, and your fine eyelashes fluttered ever so slightly, like the damp, delicate wings of a dragonfly drying after the rain.

But the rain never stopped.

When I realised that you were still with me after we entered the afterlife of Soul Society… I wasn't glad; I was despaired that you were still in the care of someone as helpless and incapable as I am.

So I left you; I left you to find a life for myself, and I hoped that you would find a better life, too… or perhaps just die again, to be born to a better family, better siblings who would actually be able to protect you.

And I _did_ find a better life. I finally found something… someone. I found Byakuya. With him, I found out what it was like to be happy, what it was like to have a chance to think about the future, what it was like to have someone there to take care of you. I found a place where my soul could rest…

But the rain kept falling, and I found myself fading away, the way raindrops seep into the thirsty earth and disappeared upon impact.

Yet there was a pale shade of blue in that stormy sky, and I knew that you had survived.

So I searched. I began to search for you.

But I was too weak to do it on my own; I did not dare ask Byakuya for help – he had already gotten into enough trouble taking me into the Kuchiki family, and if I ask such a task of him…

I could not bear to see those looks again, the glances that branded me as trash, as unworthy, as filth. Furthermore, I could not endure those looks that were meant for my dearest husband.

Deep down, though, I knew I was as they had branded me – worthless. I knew, and I think the gods knew, for the clouds stopped the thin rays of sunlight that was my life with Byakuya, the only moments of true joy in my life. The only place where the rain did not fall.

And the clouds began to spread, covering my world in a curtain of damp and dark hopelessness. The storm could not be waited out, and not even Byakuya's light could shine through them.

So before the last patch of the blue sky that was you disappeared behind the clouds, I reached out for it. The clouds parted, ever so slightly, and I could see a little of the sun, and a little of the blue sky. Both were so pure, so out of reach, up there within the realm of the divine.

I could not touch the sky. The clouds were too thick, too heavy. Before they gathered again, I begged Byakuya to find you, and take you as his sister – you deserved him, and not me. The sky is in the heavens with the sun, and not with the rain clouds that gloomed over the lifeless earth.

Perhaps it was my karma; I was born again into a life that was as black as the memory of my world – I can still remember. Even now, I can remember.

I can remember you, I can remember Byakuya. I can remember my failure.

With my vision and voice absent from the physical world, my mind's eye turns to the world of my soul, where it rains on.

There is life in my world now, though; my parents make plants and flowers bloom out of the previously-barren earth. Even though I have neither vision nor voice, there are always sounds and colour in my world; sounds that were not the sound of rain, and colours that were not grey or black.

I can now accomplish something. Growth can now take place. I have developed my audio-graphic memory, and now the piano sings for me.

But the rain is still falling, and I still continue to reach for that blue sky.

I could sense you when you came a while ago, Rukia… you're a shinigami now! I heard you introduce yourself – _Kuchiki Rukia_.

And at that moment, the rain stopped, and I saw, for the first time, a rainbow.

Yes, the rain is still falling, and I still long for that reunion with you, but I know that I don't deserve you. Your life is better without me.

But if you ever come again, please listen to the silence of the night…

Although it's dark outside, listen, and you might hear the soft notes of my piano –

The song for you, from my soul.

And let me see a rainbow again.


End file.
